Where Are The Dems And The Protesters On The Rhode Island Firings?

I don't get it.

The mayor of Providence FIRED EVERY teacher in the city on Thursday and I have yet to see ANY action from the union to push back on this.

I know that the protests in Wisconsin are sucking up a lot of media oxygen, but it shouldn't be too difficult to tie the Rhode Island firings to the Wisconsin workers' protests.

I wonder if the fact that the mayor is a Democrat has anything to do with the silence on the part of many on the left on this issue?

I also wonder if Barack Obama, cheerleading the firing of teachers up the road from Providence in Central Falls, Rhode Island last year doesn't complicate this somewhat?

Not for me, of course.

I see Barack OBama for EXACTLY who he is - a bought politician doing the dirty work of his corporatist owners and overlords, no different from George Bush or Bill Clinton before him.

Frankly on education, Obama is EVEN WORSE then Bush, perhaps because the Dems in Congress decided to give in on every neo-liberal wet dream policy Obama wanted as part of Race to the Top - from school closures, to teacher firings to merit pay to teacher evaluations tied to test scores.

No way the Dems would have given Bush that stuff.

So now here we are, a year and a half later and the fall-out from the concerted Obama teacher bashing policies are coming to fruition all across the country, but especially so in Rhode Island.

It's easy for the Dems and the unions to get together and push back against Scott Walker for trying to bust the public employees unions in Wisconsin.

But how do they get together to push back against a Democratic mayor who fires ALL of the teachers in his city in order to bust their union after a Democratic president put into place policies that helps unionbusters in public education and cheerled the firing of teachers in Rhode Island last year?

The fight in Wisconsin?

That's R vs. D.

But the fight in Rhode Island?

That's Dem vs. Teachers.

Do Barack Obama And Arne Duncan SUPPORT The Firing Of Every Teacher In Providence?

As Modern School points out here, two weeks ago Secretary of Collaboration Arne Duncan praised the Rhode Island teachers union for all the "collaboration" they have done with the districts in the state.

Last week, the mayor of Providence FIRED EVERY teacher in the city.

Ironically, Obama's Secretary of Collaboration Arne Duncan was silent on the Rhode Island firings.

Perhaps that was because, despite all the collaboration the unionized teachers in Providence have done on issues like Race to the Top, school closures and teacher evaluations, Duncan SUPPORTS the FIRING of EVERY teacher in Providence.

I think, considering his (and his boss's) cheerleading of the FIRING of EVERY teacher up the road in Central Falls, Rhode Island last year, a pretty good argument could made that both Duncan and Obama SUPPORT the FIRING of EVERY teacher in Providence.

Perhaps somebody could ask the Secretary of Collaboration the next time they see him about this?

Or perhaps somebody could ask his boss, President Obama?

I think their silence on this issue is more telling than any jive ass words they could utter, but let's hear those words anyway.

Rhode Island Firings Strike DIRECTLY At Seniority System

In LA, the ACLU successfully sued to ban the use of seniority in determining layoffs in some schools.

In NY State, Mayor Bloomberg has had his paid state senate and assembly whores introduce bills that will end the seniority system as a basis for layoffs.

There are no guarantees the mayor will get what he wants on this issue, since the plan put into place to replace seniority is complicated and even some lawmakers in favor of ending LIFO for teachers have expressed reservations about the bills.

These are all shots at the seniority system, damaging but perhaps not completely fatal to it.

Perhaps.

But the Providence, Rhode Island policy to fire EVERY teacher is fatal if the mayor and the city is allowed to get away with it:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- No matter how you slice it, the decision Thursday by the city School Board to notify Providence teachers that they might be terminated at the end of the school year strikes at the heart of their union contract's seniority system, school experts say.

Mayor Angel Taveras says that the decision he recommended to the board is strictly about balancing the city's budget.

He says that termination will save money because teachers who are dismissed and not rehired will not end up in a substitute teaching pool.

But David V. Abbott, the state's deputy education commissioner, said the difference between layoffs and dismissals is this: When a teacher is laid off under state statute, he or she is put on a recall list. Although that teacher is no longer working and no longer paid, that person exists in an employment "limbo." The teacher hasn't been actually dismissed.

If a job becomes available for which that teacher is qualified, that person must be rehired based on seniority.

"If you are laid off, you have the right of recall," Abbott said Friday. "You still have one stick in your bundle. If I'm dismissed, I'm out of work and I need to be rehired."

In effect, every teacher who is terminated has to re-apply for his or her job as would any new teacher entering the system.

As I pointed out yesterday, Rhode Island has become the union-busting, teacher-bashing laboratory for America, so forget about Wisconsin for a moment and focus your sights here:

If Mayor Taveras is able to get away with this move legally to fire EVERY teacher in the city and rehire whoever he wants to teach (i.e., the cheapest and the newest), then mayors and governors all across the country will be doing this stuff next year.

Yes, the Wisconsin battle is an important one for unions.

But this Rhode Island battle against teachers is even MORE IMPORTANT for teachers.

So Randi Weingarten, rather than issuing some jiveass comments about the move on the same day that she issues an AFT plan to fire teachers ought to be doing what her members want her to do - protect them against corporate scum like Mayor Taveras who seek to balance their budgets - budgets that were blown up by the Wall Street criminals who caused the financial crisis of 2007-2008, btw - on the backs of loyal, hard-working teachers.

Your ball, Randi.

What do you intend to do?

STOP Collaborating!!!

The future of American public education has been happening in Rhode Island these days.

In Central Falls, Rhode Island, teachers were all fired this week last year because their school was "failing". These firings were a DIRECT result of the Obama administration's Race to the Top policy which promotes firing teachers at the "worst" schools in America, closing those schools and reopening them as charters.

Eventually those teachers were rehired when they agreed to concessions like a longer work day, a longer work year and extra professional development.

But the point had been made - GIVE the administrations in Washington, the states and the municipalities what they want or you're gone.

In the year since, the teachers union in Rhode Island has gone out of its way to be collaborative with reform - agreeing to a new teacher evaluation process, signing onto Race to the Top without any reservation (and hrlping the city get $75 million in federal funds), agreeing to other concessions in school turnarounds to make the districts and state happy.

And what have the teachers of both Central Falls, Rhode Island and Providence, Rhode Island gotten for all this "collaboration"?

They were fired this week.

ALL of them.

Just like that.

Here was AFT President Randi Weingarten's reaction in the Providence Journal today:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, considers it "shocking" that Providence may send dismissal notices to the city's 2,000 teachers.

"What makes this even more stunning is that the district and the Providence Teachers Union have been working collaboratively on a groundbreaking, nationally recognized school transformation model," Weingarten said in a statement released Wednesday night. "A mass firing, announced in the middle of a school year, does not help solve a budget problem -- the purported reason -- but, rather, disrupts the education of all students and the entire community.

"The mayor claims he needs flexibility," she said. "We looked up "flexibility" in the dictionary, and it does not mean destabilizing education for all students in Providence or taking away workers' voice or rights."

Weingarten said that mass firings are not fiscally or educationally sound. She urged the mayor and the school superintendent to resolve their issues by working in a collaborative way.

"For the past two years,'' she said, "that's what they have been doing when it comes to work on improving low-performing schools, developing an innovative hiring process and revamping the teacher evaluation system."

Yes, for the last two years the teachers have been collaborating with the state and the districts, giving them the "reforms" they wanted, even when those reforms seemed short-sighted, badly designed or just plan wrong, and what have they gotten for all that collaboration?

They ALL got FIRED.

So much for the collaboration on the part of the state and the districts, eh?

Guess the collaboration is only on one side.

Here is how some Providence teachers and the head of the union reacted to the news of the mass firings:




As the fall-out from Obama's Race to the Top continues to spread nationwide, you can be sure that what happened in Central Falls, Rhode Island last year will happen all across the country in the next few years.

And just as the Providence, Rhode Island mayor decided to fire EVERY teacher in the city to plug an alleged hole in the budget, you can be sure that many mayors and governors around the country will do the same if they can get away with it.

This Rhode Island mass firing is in many ways WORSE than Scott Walker's trying to end collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin.

The mayor of Providence just said "F--- you, I don't care what rights you have or what union you belong to. You're all fired and I'll hire who I want to hire. What are you going to do about it - complain to Obama? Ha!"

Okay, so what have we learned from the last two years of collaborating with Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, with the ed deform movement and with the corporatists who insatiably ask for more, more, more from teachers and teachers unions.

That collaboration gets you fired.

Collaboration gets you screwed.

There is NO amount of collaboration that will save you when they want to fire you.

In fact, if you've collaborated with them in the past, you might be first on the chopping block because they KNOW what a stupid sap you've been, that you've given them EVERYTHING they wanted and gotten NOTHING in return.

I don't want to take this analogy too far, but really, Weingarten and the union leadership act like Neville Chamberlain in these aggressive, anti-teacher and anti-union times.

They declare we need to do more collaboration with the ed deform movement and hail past collaborations even as the end result of that collaboration is that EVERY TEACHER IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND HAS BEEN TERMINATED.

The leadership just DOES NOT GET IT.

Seriously, ALL of the teachers in Providence and Central Falls were fired this week and as NYC Educator points out, Weingarten was hailing a new AFT system to fire teachers today.

View the tape of the fired teachers above and then read Randi's words and tell me she doesn't sound like Chamberlain?

We have collaboration in our time.

Uh, huh.

And a whole swath of fired teachers and a broken teachers union in Rhode Island.

It is time to end COLLABORATION - with Obama, with Duncan, with the mayors and governors, with anybody in the ed deform movement, especially the rich oligarchs like Bill Gates.

They ARE the enemy and until every teachers union local in the country realizes this and bands together to STOP them, they are going to keep squeezing, keep scapegoating, keep firing.

STOP THE COLLABORATION.

START FIGHTING.

Where's Obama On Central Falls, Rhode Island Now?

President Accountability and his corporate education management organization secretary Arne Duncan both applauded when all those teachers at Central Falls, Rhode Island were fired as a result of Obama's Race to the Top program.

Somehow they managed to blame all the problems in that school on the teachers.

But here's how bad Central Falls, Rhode Island is AS A COMMUNITY:

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — These are trying times for the people of Central Falls, a city so close to fiscal collapse that the state seized control of City Hall last summer. Taxes have risen nearly 20 percent to help solve the immediate crisis, unions have agreed to givebacks and the city of 19,000 — all 1.29 square miles of it — seems tinged with defeat.

But to hear Mayor Charles D. Moreau tell it, his own suffering may be worst of all.

Mr. Moreau, a Democrat serving his fourth term, has not set foot in City Hall since July 19, the day that a state-appointed receiver took control. The state police knocked on his door that morning, he said, demanded his city-owned car and cellphone and keys to City Hall and handed him a letter announcing his salary of $71,736 was being cut to $26,000. His role was now advisory, he was informed.

“I was told they’d call if they needed me,” Mr. Moreau said recently in a rare interview. “They haven’t called since.”

Across the nation, cities and states are trying myriad ways of righting their fiscal ships as the recession plods on. But locking the mayor out of City Hall is generally not one of them.

A number of local governments are so financially distressed that states have assumed an oversight role. Several cities in Michigan have emergency financial managers appointed by the state, for example, and in New York, a state board seized control of Nassau County’s finances last month. But in those cases and others, local elected officials have retained some role.

“The circumstances that have led to the difficulties in Central Falls may actually be widespread,” said Christopher W. Hoene, director of research for the National League of Cities. “But not very many cities are in that dire straits.”

Mr. Moreau, 47, is suing the state, asserting that the law allowing the takeover of financially troubled cities violates his constitutional right to due process, among other things. He appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court after losing the first round and is awaiting a ruling.

Meanwhile, the blunt-talking mayor is working at his brother’s real estate office, down the street from City Hall, and stewing about the situation he finds himself in. He has rebuffed calls to step down and, in fact, said he was already planning his 2013 re-election campaign.

“My bumper stickers are ready to be printed,” he said. “I’d win re-election with 90 percent of the vote if the election was today.”

Listen, I don't care anything about this mayor, that his feelings have been hurt by his lockout or that his alleged corruption has played a part in his treatment by the state.

What I do care about is that the jackboots from Washington - Obama and Duncan - used this town as an emblem for the "failure of public education" when clearly THERE ARE SO MANY PROBLEMS IN THIS TOWN THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Somebody should ask Obama why it is he thinks teachers should be held accountable for all the problems in that town - from high alcoholism and addiction rates to high abuse rates to the extreme poverty rates to the high unemployment rates to the town's fiscal insolvency and stewardship by the state.

Because that is EXACTLY what he did when he applauded the firing of those teachers.

The Obama Administration and Labor

Here's another example of the "pro-labor" Obama administration going out of its way to help unions:

In "Overhaul", his upcoming chronicle of his reign as "car czar," Steven Rattner offers an insider's account of the Obama administration's rescue of the auto industry. And he pulls no punches when it comes to describing the foibles of such heavyweights as Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Sheila Bair.

...

Rattner depicts White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as a force to be reckoned with who disparaged unions -- once quipping "Fuck the UAW" -- and who effectively supervised Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner during his first rocky months on the job by dictating his public appearances and staff picks.

...

Emanuel could also be spectacularly blunt, once telling Rattner during a meeting about GM and Chrysler's massive problems and potential bankruptcies: "Why even save GM?" When Rattner adviser Ron Bloom noted that tens of thousands of autoworker jobs were at stake, Emanuel huffed, "Fuck the UAW," referring to the United Auto Workers union.

...

Though Rattner praised Obama's thoughtful manner when he calmly executed his decisions, the car czar notes that the president seemed to have it in for the automakers from the beginning.

At his first substantive sit-down with his advisers a week after the election, when the U.S. auto industry's problems were broached, Obama quipped:

"Why can't they make a Corolla?"

Later, when Obama was informed of the plan to give ousted GM Chief Rick Wagoner $7.1 million, his jaw muscles tightened and Rattner writes: "Suddenly I felt that I was indeed in the presence of a community organizer..."

But Rattner does emphasize that Obama didn't seem to prefer the giant autoworkers unions, either, stating that "no one in the Obama administration ever asked us to favor labor for political reasons."

Ah, yes - "Fuck the UAW!"

That sounds SOOOOOOO pro-union.

Just like the Obama administration forcing new UAW members to take 50% pay cuts compared to the pay older UAW members receive.

Or President Obama insisting that union members with employer-provided health care plans pay a 40% excise tax to pay for his health care "reform" plan/giveaway to the insurance companies.

Or President Obama pushing his Blame Schools/Fire Teachers Race to the Top program and cheering when teachers in Rhode Island were fired.

And of course labor leaders, rather than return the "Fuck you's!" to the administration, bend over backwards to accommodate them and support them come election time.

Just saw the UAW president on CNBC and when asked about the Rahm Emanuel quote he dismissed it and said something like "This administration is very pro-labor."

Uh, huh.

Pushing higher taxes, lower wages and reduced job protections for union members does NOT qualify as "pro-labor" in my estimation.

As I have said before, as long as this dysfunctional relationship exists where the administration abuses labor, disparages them behind the scenes and works against their interests while the unions take it and support Dems and Obama because "the Republican alternative would be worse," labor union members are going to continue to get screwed.

Until the labor movement finally says "No, we don't care if you SAY you're pro-labor, SHOW us how you're pro-labor," labor unions and union members are going to continue to get abused by corporate whore Dems like Obama and Emanuel.

As for the Emanuel "quip" about the UAW, I would like to adapt a Rodney Dangerfield line from the movie "Back to School" in reply:

"What's that, Emanuel? Fuck me? Hey, Emanuel, do you read lips? Fuck you!!!!!!"

Oh, and President Obama?

Hope you can read lips too.

Obama Fires Teachers, Rewards AIG Execs

Obama said he was happy that over 100 teachers, coaches and counselors at a Rhode Island school were fired last week.

He said teachers need to be held accountable and that's what happened when all these people were fired.

Now the U.S. taxpayer owns AIG after the company nearly brought down the financial system back in 2008 and had to be bailed out with hundreds of billions of government dollars.

Last quarter the company lost $8.87 billion dollars.

That's billion with a "b."

Has anybody at the company been held accountable by President Accountability?

Not exactly.

Management is having their salary increases cut. They're only going to get 10% raises this year.

Only 10%.

For losing $8.87 billion in one quarter.

That's accountability for you.

I called the White House this afternoon to let them know it's sell-out stuff like this has me hoping Democrats lose in both 2010 and 2012.

You should call or email too.

Let 'em know what you think of President Accountability handing out 10% raises to AIG execs but writing the federal rules so that thousands of teachers will be fired.